INTRODUCTION:Human Resource Planning is concerned with the controlled utilization of human resources to achieve pre-set objectives, both short-term

and long-term. The Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is a software or online solution for the data entry, data tracking, and data information needs of the Human Resources, payroll, management, and accounting functions within a business. Normally packaged as a data base, hundreds of companies sell some form of HRIS and every HRIS has different capabilities. FEATURES:1) Demand work involving analyzing, reviewing, and attempting to forecast the number in terms kind, level, functions, etc. 2) Supply work attempting to predict what action is, and will be needed to ensure that the required numbers are available. 3) Designing the interaction between demand and supply, so that skills are utilised to the best possible advantage, and aspirations of the individuals are duly considered. To state briefly, planning process aims to bring supply and demand into balance at the levels most consistent with the needs of the projected requirements and with the assessments of the economic and social environment prevailing and expected. The basis of all manpower planning is information. You will need the know-how to gather relevant data, analyse manpower demand and supply, and how to apply this information to improve job efficiency and manpower utilisation. Whether you are auditing the current situation or looking forward, you will need information and reliable data, any way, in order to make best decisions or to move into new direction. Gone are the times when decisions about future could be based on hunches. Now you need to collect hard data in order to make the future events more manageable than before. Increasingly, human resource professionals and specialist managers wanting to introduce a new manpower planning system or improve an existing one, use information as an invaluable aid in decision making. This tool is developed by systematizing the processes of collecting, maintaining, analysing and reporting information.

HRIS Defined
From the above, a general definition of Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is developed. Thus, Human Resource Information System provides a method by which an organisation collects, maintains, analyses and reports information on people and jobs. The information contained in the HRIS serves as a guide to recruiters, trainers, career planners and other human resource specialists. It applies to information needs at macro level as well as to the micro level. In this Unit whereas human resource information at the macro level is considered briefly, rest of the discussion is devoted to the human resource information at the micro level, i.e., the enterprise level. The Unit also discusses some approaches to build an effective HRIS and the utility of computer applications in this regard.

INFORMATION: SOME BASIC GUIDELINES It has already been noted that without information, it is very difficult to initiate the planning process. For example in order to plan the tourism development of a destination one would need information about the number of expected tourist arrivals, number of beds available, number of guides required, etc. Similarly, any organisation dealing in providing tourism services needs information to plan operations and thereby look for the manpower to manage them. Hence, in order to make information useful and effective, the following key points need to be taken note of:

1) Adequacy of information: Lack of information hinders planning and will leave unfilled gaps. 2) Specificity of information: If the information is for decision making, then which decisions are to be made and what information is needed, therefore, must be made specific. 3) Over-estimating information: It is desirable to follow a conservative approach. It is better to understate the need than to waste resource on unused mass of information. 4) Identifying need levels: There is a need for different levels of detail of information. 5) Mechanism for addition/deletion: The how and when of information to be added/deleted should be considered. 6) Management support: Information systems need constant management support for maintenance. 7) Quality of information matters: Otherwise, the famous GIGO (garbage in/garbage out) principle will be found at work.

HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION AT MACRO LEVEL

Institutional arrangements at the macro level Let us now briefly look at the institutional arrangements for providing data at the macro level. The main agencies and institutions in India are: The Planning Commission. The Ministry of Labour. The National Sample Survey Organisation. The Institute of Applied Manpower Research. The National Labour Institute. Universities. Other institutions at the state level. 1) At the apex of the institutional machinery for plan formulation regarding employment and manpower sectors, is the Employment Manpower Planning Division of the Planning

Commission. This Division works closely with the Perspective Planning Division of the Planning Commission. 2) The Labour Ministry collects the data on employment through the Directorate General of Employment and Training. 3) Employment data is also collected through the National Sample Survey and the Annual Survey of Industries. 4) The Institute of Applied Manpower Research conducts studies on employment strategies and estimates at the sectoral and project levels. 5) The National Labour Institute has conducted major studies at the sectoral and project levels on institutional conditions on rural employment. 6) Researchers in the Universities and other research systems also participate. 7) The sate level employment market information scheme departments collect data on local labour markets through employment market information schemes.

HRM as a total system

Murdick and Ross consider the human resource management as a total system that interacts with other major systems of the organisation, viz., marketing, production, finance, and the external environment. Basically, a system consists of several inputs and outputs, and a number of related subsystems, processes and activities, all operating through the medium of information. Figure I depicts the Murdick and Ross model on human resource information systems followed by a brief description of the objectives that each subsystem is designed to accomplish.

EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEM:SOME APPROACHES:To begin with an effective information system, there are two basic questions to be answered. 1) What is the information need? 2) How can it be met most effectively? These posers are important, whatever be the size of the organisation. As far as small organisations are concerned, there is unlikely to be a need to undertake elaborate manpower planning. In such organisations the information needs are likely to be few and simple, as can be met by a manual human resource information system. The manual system consists of a set of forms and manual files. The manual files consists of a set of records. There is a folder for each employee with the employees employment history, appraisals, and salary record maintained in the personnel department. Another set of records pertaining to compensation and benefits information may be maintained in the pay roll section. The employees manager may also like to maintain a separate file for his or her exclusive use. Entries on forms and addition/deletion in the existing records is carried out manually. (The manually operated information systems suffer from several deficiencies which we will consider later).

Organisations not small, and not having a comprehensive HRI systems can take recourse to several other alternatives: 1) Expand the existing computer based payroll system. Since most firms now use a computer for payroll purposes, this system itself includes many basic employee data elements which may be expanded to include other elements necessary for human resource planning. 2) Establish a supplemental system. Alternatively, a separate supplemental system could be established and interfaced with the payroll system to provide the additional data elements required. If planned intelligently, this could be a step towards a modular approach to building a comprehensive HRIS. 3) Set up a wholly separate information system. This is the third alternative which suggests the establishment of a wholly separate information system for human resource planning purpose only. In large and modern organisations, the trend is clearly towards establishment of comprehensive systems. For example, ITC has a comprehensive information system used by management to store, change and report personnel information. It is a centralised information source in a company that is diverse in its organisation, products and locations.

WHY COMPUTERISE PERSONNEL RECORDS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS?

I have noted that a periodic and systematic analyses of the personnel records can be used for a variety of purposes such as: provide data essential to human resource planning, aid the evaluation of current personnel policies and practices, enable to produce an inventory of manpower, and preparation of several reports and returns for submission to various government/non government agencies, etc. In manually operated personnel record systems, entries on forms and insertion of changes from time to time in the relevant records often fall behind so that the records are not showing the current position always. This leads to a fresh exercise toward collecting and compilation

of original data elements, everytime the information is required. All that can be very time consuming. Hence, let us look at some of the shortcomings inherent in manual personnel records systems so that the perspective of potential benefits of going in for a computerised personnel record and information system becomes clearer.

Deficiencies and drawbacks of the manual system:

These include the following: i) Cost: Manual systems involve significant clerical and routine administrative work load, the maintenance and updating of records being labour intensive and costly. In addition, the documentation being relatively non-standardise, the same have to be provided time and again; the same have to be produced separately. ii) Accuracy: The manual transfer of data from one record to another increase the chances of error. It is not uncommon to find the data collected form the same source at different times or by different people giving almost a different picture. As a result, the accuracy and reliability of the manual system is held to be very much in doubt. iii) Fragmentation: Manually stored information is frequently held in a fragmented manner with different pieces of information being kept in separate files at different places. Thus, many manual systems are unable to provide a single comprehensive picture of an employee on one record. iv) Duplication: As it happens, some of the information held in the personnel records may be needed simultaneously by a number of other user departments, such as, payroll department/salary group, training department may like to keep duplicate records to meet their respective needs. Such practices are not only prone to duplication but add to the costs. v) Difficulty of analyses: The manual analyses of data is time-consuming and quite often not available on time for the purpose of decision making. As a result the difficulty in extracting information promptly from manual systems may put the personnel function in a backstage position where it may be overlooked or bypassed for as a source of useful information for decision making. So much so, the role and opportunities of the personnel function to influence manpower planning decisions may get consequently reduced. In the

ultimate, in that event, it is likely to create scope for decisions being taken on ad hoc basis so very prejudicial to systematic planning and decision making leave aside any meaningful control and measurement mechanism being available to the management. The problems need to be considered in the context of ones own organisation. Moreover, as organisations grow larger, the manual systems tend to break down under the burden of manual processing. b) Computerised personnel records/information system: Some potential benefits: While it would be presumptuous to assume that computerisation would automatically solve all the problems associated with manual systems, in the fast changing technological and information processing environment, it does present several potential benefits: i) Cost effectiveness: Taking into consideration the factors of time, speed and the enormous amount of data which a computer can process, the computerisation offers an option. When personnel function faces conflicting pressures to provide more information while at the same time to reduce administrative overhead costs, the computerised system can become increasingly cost effective because in the long run the costs of computer hardware fall relatively to the cost of employing ever-increasing clerical staff. But let it be understood clearly that it would be a false analogy to draw a straight cost comparison between a manually operated system and a computerised system because the computer is capable of performing a fundamentally different job. Thus, to put the concept of cost-effectiveness in the right perspective, the improvement in the quality of human resource decision making which is made possible through computerisation, need also be taken into consideration. ii) Effective human resource information: Perhaps more than the cost effectiveness is the potential provided by computerisation for establishing an effective human resource information system. Table-2 on the next page makes it clear: Table 2

Manual system Retrieving information is slow and cumbersome

Computerised system Retrieving information is fast and simple

Personnel function is bypassed as a source of Personnel is considered as a useful information reliable source of information

useful for decision making Identity of personnel function is lost With information as a power tool, the personnel function is in a position to influence policies and decisions

Duplication of reports deals to dual work and lots As many copies of reports can be of paper printed without much paper work. Not able to respond to ad hoc enquiries for Information can be readily information and complex data needs manipulated, merged and disaggregated in response to special and complex demands and presented promptly

iii) Improved accuracy: In addition, a computerised human resource information system can eliminate the shortcomings of manual system noted earlier. Significantly, computerised systems do not depend upon constantly copying out data form one record to another as in the manual system. That means the data is entered only once with provision for updating at regular intervals. Therefore, once the relevant data have been fed accurately, they will remain in pure form and accurate until any item is changed. iv) Validation of data-error detection: Further, availability of good software systems should enable validating and editing data and detecting errors in a number of ways such as: criterion checks for particular fields, for example, an error warning if a post is reserved for a certain category of person, if a salary is above or below a certain minimum/maximum, or if age exceeds 58 years and, so on. link checks, for example, that salary is incompatible with grade, date of joining is at least 18 years after date of birth, etc. Finally, a computerised system can greatly reduce fragmentation and duplication of data. All data can be stored in a single system to enable retrieval of a complete picture of each employee or of each defined parameter in a desired number of permutation and combinations. In advanced systems, other user departments outside the personnel function can be provided

with an on-line link into the data base from remote control terminals programmed with passwords to restrict access and update only those parts of the data base which are necessary for meeting out specific needs. COMPUTER APPLICATION IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: AN OVERVIEW In the earlier Section the potential uses of computers as against the manual human resource information system were considered. It has enabled us to develop a preamble to the subject of applications of computers in human resource management. A computer based human resource information system is: A computerized personnel record system a generator of personnel information. An aid to personnel administration, and An aid to various specialist techniques in personnel management where a strong and reliable data base provides the key to greater effectiveness. This Section sets out a list of potential applications of computers in personnel function. The list is intended to provide an overview of the applications; yet not to be treated as exhaustive. Because once the system is established, possibilities of new applications in specific need areas can be explored: a) Personal record keeping: The fundamental functions of computers in personal work is keeping employee records. A good personnel system should enable the personnel department to store all information currently held manually about employees on a computer. In addition, it should be possible for the user to keep historical files of past employees for purposes of identifying trends and making projections when developing human resource plans. It can also have personal records of those who can be temporarily or seasonally employed as is the case in tourism. b) Report generation: Report generation is the capability which enables the user to manipulate any of the items stored on the data base as required by means of software referred to as report generator. That would mean facility for producing the more common standard reports, ad hoc enquiry facilities, and a diary facility. The diary facility can be called up to cover a certain period of time such as the forthcoming month, and will produce a list of action required by the personnel department on the basis of information held in the data base.

10

c) Word processing and integrated letter writing: With this facility it is possible to store in the word processor a range of standard contracts of employment or a variety of standard clauses which can be selected and merged together in order to reduce the typing effort individually. Linking word processing to the computerised personnel system provides further opportunities to automate standard administrative procedures. d) Recruitment: When organisations are engaged in recruitment campaigns, these can generate a considerable amount of administrative work. Under a computerised procedure, the basic details of applicants can be put into the computer and their progress through the recruitment procedure can be fed into the computer in the same way. Such a system can provide management with progress reports on the filling of vacancies and the status of the pending applications. e) Wage and salary planning: Planning of wage and salary increases which otherwise is a time consuming process and fought with discrepancies in a manual system, can be easily handled by a good computer system. f) Absence and sickness: The data on sickness and absence duration, reasons, etc., can be stored against the record of each employee. The attendance of the employees can also be taken care of by the computerised punching of card on the time of arrival and departure of the employee from the office. For purposes of reporting this information can be summarised periodically according to the variables stored on the data base. g) Human resource planning: We have noted earlier that information is the strategic backbone of human resource planning. Computers are capable of assisting the process of human resource planning in several ways. Firstly, they greatly enhance the scope of the personnel department to analyse the structure and composition of the current labour force and to provide useful information for human resource planning purposes. Secondly, by using specially designed packages it would be possible to make projections and raise issues which can simulate future patterns of the organisations human resource system. Further, the system will be readily able to identify weak spots and strong points through the process of generating information and its analysis. Additionally specialised modelling packages can be used for such applications as (i) for predicting wastage patterns, (ii) for simulating manpower flows into, within and outside the organisation, and (iii) for simulating career structure against a range of assumptions about organisational growth or contraction.

11

h) Personnel costing and control: It is now possible to provide through a computerised information system line management with regular reports of staff numbers and costs against budgets or targets, including information on turnover, absenteeism, overtime levels and costs to serve as indicators of the organisations extent of efficiency in the utilisation of its human resources. i)Training and development: A computerised personnel records system provides organisations with speedier and ready access to information about the skills, education, qualification, appraisal ratings, career history, etc., of employees. This will help talent search within the organisation as well as identification of training and developmental needs of employees at different levels. j) Other application packages: Include job analysis, job evaluation, staff scheduling rostering and shift modeling, etc. Finally, as one of the most significant uses and applications of computers in personnel work is the capability of computers to produce output in the form of graphs, bar charts, histograms, pie charts, etc., through the use of appropriate software peripherals.

Barriers to the success of HRIS:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Lack of management commitment. Satisfaction with the status quo. No or poorly done needs analysis. Failure to include key people. Failure to keep project team intact. Politics / hidden agendas. Failure to involve / consult significant groups. Lack of communication. Bad timing (time of year and duration).

HRIS software:
Abra Suite: for human resources and payroll management.

12

 ABS (Atlas Business Solutions): General Information, Wages information, emergency information, Reminders, Evaluators, Notes customer information, Documents and photos, Separation information. CORT: HRMS: applicant tracking, Attendance tracking and calendars, Wage information, Skills tracking, Reports-to information, Status tracking, Job history tracking, Cost center tracking, Reviews and tracking, Mass update and change tools etc. HRSOFT: Identify and track senior managers, Assess management skills and talents, Generate a wide range of reports, resumes, employee profiles, replacement tables and succession analysis reports, Identify individuals for promotion, skills shortages, unexpected vacancy, Discover talent deep, Competency Management, career development, align succession plans etc. Human Resource MicroSystems: sophisticated data collection and reporting, flexible spending accounts, compensation, employment history, time off, EEO, qualifications, Applicant/Requisition Tracking, Position Control/Succession Planning, Training Administration, Organization Charts, HRIS-Pro Net (employee/managerial selfservice), HR Automation (eNotification and eScheduler), and Performance Pro (performance management). ORACLE- HRMS: Oracle iRecruitment, Oracle Self-Service Human Resources, Payroll, HR Intelligence, Oracle Learning Management, Oracle Time and Labor PEOPLESOFT: Enterprise eRecruit, Enterprise Resume Processing, Enterprise Services Procurement, Workforce Planning, Warehouse SAP HR: Human Capital Management (HCM) for Business, All-in-One: Rapid HR, SPECTRUM HR: iVantage and HRVantage. iVantage is a Web-based HRIS product designed for organizations with up to 10,000 employees. VANTAGE: HRA: 'Point-and-Click' report writing, internal Messaging System for leaving reminders to yourself, to someone else or to everyone using HRA - very useful for Benefit Applications, Disciplinary Actions, Special Events, Employee Summary Screen for Basic, Leave (Absenteeism) and Salary/Position History, skills & training module, Leave Tracking Module.

13

CONCLUSION:
An effective HRIS provides information on just about anything the company needs to track and analyze about employees, former employees, and applicants. Your company will need to select a Human Resources Information System and customize it to meet your needs. With an appropriate HRIS, Human Resources staff enables employees to do their own benefits updates and address changes, thus freeing HR staff for more strategic functions. Additionally, data necessary for employee management, knowledge development, career growth and development, and equal treatment is facilitated. Finally, managers can access the information they need to legally, ethically, and effectively support the success of their reporting employees.

14